you…” he leaned forward and put his hand on my cheek.
I had been sitting on the edge of my chair, so I slid back into it all the way, trying to escape. Brandon followed. His nose was inches from mine. I couldn’t slide back any further in the chair unless I literally crawled over the back of it.
Brandon continued in a low voice, “…not her—”
Suddenly, Brandon’s smile froze. He straightened up stiffly and slipped his hands in his pockets. “Oh, hey, Kamiko,” he said flatly.
I whipped around, practically falling out of the chair. Shit! How long had she been standing there? Judging from the tears in her eyes and the way she ran down the hall sobbing, I would guess long enough.
From where Kamiko had been standing, I’m sure it looked like Brandon was about to kiss me, but Kamiko wouldn’t have seen the grimace on my face.
“Kamiko!” I shouted. “It’s not what you think!” But she was already pounding down the stairs. She probably hadn’t heard me. If she had, I feared she didn’t believe me. I stood up from the chair, about to run after Kamiko. “You’re such a jerk, Brandon!”
He frowned. “Why, because I’m not interested in her?” he scoffed. “Is that a crime?”
“No! But…” I sighed heavily, “…you’re still a jerk!” I ran after Kamiko, but stopped halfway down the hall. I ran back to grab her portfolio off the top of the desk. I glared at Brandon as I picked it up.
“What?” he asked defensively.
I eyed the show catalog Brandon had taken out for Kamiko. I didn’t know if she was going to care, but I snatched it for her, just in case.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs and the gallery floor, Kamiko was gone. I ran out the front doors and onto the sidewalk. I looked in both directions, but I didn’t see her anywhere.
It was getting dark, and quite a few people walked up and down the sidewalks. There were shops everywhere, and four-way intersections at both ends of the short block. She could be anywhere.
Crap. I walked to where my car was parked. Maybe she’d be waiting there. Nope, there was no sign of her when I reached my VW.
I dialed her on my phone. No answer.
I left a message, “It’s me. It’s not what you think, Kamiko. Brandon was putting the moves on me. He surprised me right before you walked in, I didn’t have time to react. I’m totally not into him…” I almost added that I was with Christos, but I suspected that reminding her I had an awesome boyfriend shortly after stupid Brandsome had thrown her heart in the garbage was a bad idea. “…and I’m really sorry about how Brandon was treating you.” I wasn’t sure if saying that made things worse or better. I ended my call, afraid my message wouldn’t do any good. Sigh.
Over the next hour, I called Kamiko three times while waiting at my car. She never answered.
Maybe she called Romeo for a ride? I called his phone, but he didn’t answer. Moments later, I got a text back from him that said,
Kamiko probably hadn’t contacted Romeo. If she had, he would’ve mentioned it in the text. I hoped. Was she taking a bus back to campus? It was five miles back to SDU. For all I knew, she was going to walk.
I felt terrible. I hoped she wasn’t going to stay mad at me. If anyone, she should be mad at Brandon.
I sighed heavily.
How did guys always manage to ruin everything?
I waited another thirty minutes and called Kamiko twice more before leaving.
I went back to campus to her dorm room. Her roommate let me in the suite and told me Kamiko hadn’t been to the room.
Where was she?
I couldn’t wait around. I had to be at the Grab-n-Dash in twenty minutes.
Crap!
SAMANTHA
I made it to Grab-n-Dash with a minute to spare. The lull in customers that greeted me was a stark contrast after my drama over the last two hours.
The first thing I did was try calling Kamiko again. I felt terrible. I worried she thought I was trying to steal Brandon from her. But that didn’t make sense. She knew I was dating Christos.
No matter how many times I called, Kamiko never answered. I was worried about her.
When the customers started coming in, I did my best to put Kamiko out of my mind and focus on my work.
An hour later, my ongoing exhaustion hit me like a brick. I could barely keep my eyes open during customer lulls, and when it was busy, I felt wired and delicate, like a fragile glass version of myself.
Every night, I still went through job websites unsuccessfully and never got enough sleep. I was starting to wish the math tutoring had panned out, but no luck there either.
I knew Grab-n-Dash wasn’t a long term option. Not only was it physically tiring, but it was emotionally draining as well. There was this depressing quality about it I couldn’t identify. Maybe it was the fact that I knew being a convenience store clerk wasn’t the sort of job my parents would be proud of. They’d probably chuckle and tell me they’d told me so.
Eye roll.
I wondered how long I could keep up my pace with four classes and two jobs. Could I maintain it through the end of the quarter, until Spring Break?
I feared it would not.
At the moment, the only thing keeping my tired eyes open was the hot-dog odor wafting off my neon-urine uniform shirt. No matter how many times I’d washed it, the smell wouldn’t go away. I’d begged my boss for a new one several times.
His response was always the same, “It’s not in the quarterly budget,” he’d say sarcastically while his prickly eyebrows caterpillared over his glasses.
Silly me. I’d forgotten that Grab-n-Dash was a Fortune 500 company with very tight margins to maintain if it hoped to meet shareholder expectations on a quarterly basis.
So I diligently hand-washed my uniform shirt nightly, air-dried it from the walkway balcony railing outside my front door every night, and stuffed it in a garbage bag when it was dry to trap the smell. Every morning, I prayed I’d wake to discover that someone had stolen my shirt off the railing, but I think the criminals were smarter than that, as were the homeless people who had minimal standards to maintain when it came to personal odor.
Hot dogs.
Yeah, I was never eating one again.
The front doors bing-bonged as Eminickle, my favorite illicit twelve-year-old Lothario, walked into Grab-n- Dash with his posse, 2 Small Crew.
“What up, girl,” Eminickle said. “You sure look foxy today!”
I smirked down at him. I think he was just shy of three feet tall. Perhaps shorter. And that was standing on his tiptoes. Was he really twelve? Maybe he was six?
“Hey, Eminickle,” I said.
“You know you call me dat cuz you know I’m yo number one playa,” he said suavely.
“Um, no? I think it’s because one is your shoe size.”
“Oh, snap!” his buddy to the right said. This buddy had red-hair, freckles, braces, and wore a T-shirt with an eight-bit Space Invader on the front.
“Come on, girl,” Eminickle said, “let me be your baby daddy!”
“Get her, dawg!” his other buddy said. This one had big glasses and a Jew-fro. His t-shirt had a picture of a rabbi holding a pair of six-pointed throwing stars of David, posing like a ninja, above a logo that said “Jew- Jitsu.”
They were harmless.
I would never tell them how much I thoroughly enjoyed their friendly visits. They were a pleasant distraction
